ORACLE VIRTUALIZATION

1. xVM — HISTORICAL ORIGIN (2007–2010)

Oracle used the name xVM for its early family of virtualization technologies:

Oracle VM Server for x86 (Xen)
Oracle VM Manager
Oracle VM VirtualBox (VirtualBox)
Oracle VM Server for SPARC (formerly Logical Domains)

It was a commercial brand that Oracle no longer uses.
The technology evolved, but the term xVM is no longer official.

2. ORACLE VIRTUALIZATION ON x86

✔ 2.1 Oracle VM (Xen) — Discontinued

Previously part of the xVM family.

Based on the Xen hypervisor
Live migration, HA, storage repositories, clustering
Integrated with Oracle Linux

📌 EOL since 2021 (end of main support)

Oracle now recommends migrating to KVM.

✔ 2.2 Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager (OLVM) — Current and fully supported

The modern platform recommended by Oracle.

Technology:

Based on KVM
Based on oVirt
Integrated with Oracle Linux (UEK & RHCK)

Features:

High availability
Live migration
Storage pools
Centralized management similar to VMware vCenter
Integration with OCI (Oracle Cloud)

📌 This is Oracle’s official virtualization platform in 2025 for x86.

✔ 2.3 Oracle VM VirtualBox — Active, for personal/development use

Formerly part of xVM.

Full virtualization for desktops/workstations
Multiplatform (Windows, macOS, Linux)
Extensions for PCI passthrough, USB, VRDP

Still very active, but not an enterprise hypervisor.

3. ORACLE VIRTUALIZATION ON SPARC

Oracle maintains SPARC architecture with the best hardware-level virtualization on the market.

✔ 3.1 Oracle VM Server for SPARC (LDoms) — Current

Previously called:

Logical Domains (LDom)
Sun Logical Domains
SPARC Hypervisor

Features:

Native virtualization built into SPARC CPUs (T & M series)
Up to 128 domains per server
Real CPU allocation (cores and threads)
PCIe SR-IOV
Live Migration
Dom0 (control domain) + guest domains
Hardware-level security

Widely used in banking, insurance, and government environments.

📌 Fully supported and updated in 2025

✔ 3.2 Oracle Solaris Zones (Containers) — Current

Lightweight virtualization integrated into Solaris.

Features:

Full namespace isolation
Near-zero overhead
Kernel zones and branded zones
Solaris 10 zones on Solaris 11 (critical for legacy workloads)
Heavy use in mission-critical SPARC systems

📌 Still a key component of Solaris + SPARC

✔ 3.3 Oracle Dynamic Domains (Hardware Partitions) — Current

Available on high-end SPARC servers (M-series).

Features:

Physical hardware partitions
100% physical isolation
Electrical and backplane redundancy
Multiple Solaris or LDom environments can run inside each domain

A higher level of isolation than LDoms or Zones.

4. VIRTUALIZATION IN ORACLE CLOUD (OCI)

✔ 4.1 OCI Compute

KVM-based virtual machines
Bare-metal instances (no hypervisor)
RDMA support
Flexible OCPU (1–64 cores)
Live Migration (new generation)

✔ 4.2 Exadata Cloud & Exadata Cloud@Customer

Specialized virtualization for Oracle Database workloads.

✔ 4.3 SPARC in the Cloud

OCI does not offer public SPARC instances, but Oracle supports SPARC virtualization on-premises via:

SPARC M-series
SPARC S-series
T8, M8 servers

Conclusion

Oracle’s virtualization today focuses on:

✔ KVM (OLVM) for x86

✔ LDoms + Solaris Zones for SPARC

✔ OCI (Oracle Cloud) for modern workloads

✔ VirtualBox for personal and development use

The term xVM is no longer used, but its legacy continues in VirtualBox and Oracle’s current enterprise virtualization technologies.

domingo, 27 de enero de 2008